Nymphomaniac [18]

Dir: Lars Von Trier

I have never found Lars Von Trier to be an especially consistent filmmaker, but when he finds form his work can be dazzling; challenging and exciting in a way that few directors today ever are.  This has certainly been true of his most recent series of films, the depression trilogy which, following Antichrist and Melancholia, now comes to a close with the colossal Nymphomaniac.

Across, in this shorter version, four hours and two volumes Nymphomaniac tells the story of Joe (played from 15 to 30 by newcomer Stacy Martin and from 30 to 50 by Charlotte Gainsbourg).  We find her lying in the street, beaten up.  Seligman (Stellan Skarsgaard) stumbles across her and, when she insists that he not call an ambulance, takes her to his home to recover.  There Joe relates, in eight chapters, the story of her life as a nymphomaniac, which she believes will lead Seligman to judge her a bad person.

There is always the question of how seriously we are to take anything that Lars Von Trier says or does, but Nymphomaniac comes loaded with more questions than that.  Is this four hour version something Von Trier is happy with?  Are we intended to see this as one long film or two distinct entities?  Is Von Trier trying to make art or porn?  Typically for its director Nymphomaniac makes none of these questions easy to answer.  That being the case you should consider this a review of the experience of seeing the two parts of this film back to back.  Having done so I'm sure that it will be a different experience viewing them separately, and I suspect doing so may benefit the films.

There are a couple of surprises about this version of Nymphomaniac (Von Trier's 5 ½ hour director's cut will likely see a Blu Ray release later this year), but the biggest is perhaps how playful and how funny it is.  Even at the film's most pretentious - and boy can it get pretentious - Von Trier's cutting and his dialogue often demonstrate a dry as dust wit, which can cut through the moments that might otherwise see you shake your head and mutter 'oh, Lars'.  For instance; Seligman often interjects in Joe's story, and at one point, just as I was inwardly sighing at another of his monologues in Volume 2, Joe told him “I think that was your most annoying interruption yet”.  The fact Von Trier seems to anticipate this criticism doesn't entirely defuse it, but this wry self-awareness is present and welcome throughout.  Seligman's interjections can be funny, but they are rather on the nose.  The fly fishing metaphor of the first chapter is amusing, but playing the same trick on different themes for four hours becomes seriously wearing by the midpoint of volume 2.  This is one of several ways in which the films might, for me, work better apart from one another. 

Throughout both volumes, Nymphomaniac essentially unfolds as two linked films; one a two hander, set in a single room, as Gainsbourg's older Joe tells her story and has discussions with Seligman, the other a series of flashbacks taking Joe from her discovery, at two, of her c**t right up to the film's opening image, when she is 50.  Both sides have moments that are great and moments that are infuriating, but for me, the flashbacks work more consistently.  

The big question of this film was always whether Von Trier could find someone who could convince as a younger Charlotte Gainsbourg as, from her look to her soft and soothing voice, Gainsbourg is one of the most distinctive (and for my money one of the best) actresses working.  Stacy Martin doesn't so much look like a young Gainsbourg as she does an absurdly beautiful melding of Gainsbourg's features with those of her mother, Jane Birkin, but what she gets right is the essence of the actress and especially the voice, which has that distinctive delicacy that is so present in the film through Gainsbourg's voiceover.  Outside of comparisons to her elder counterpart, Martin, in her first film, delivers an exceptional performance.  She has a way of delivering Joe's emotional detachment without her performance being empty.  She's especially good in what is easily Volume 1 and the film's best scene; as Uma Thurman whips up an emotional whirlwind around her Martin silently conveys Joe's alienation from, discomfort with and lack of understanding of these emotions.  When, particularly as Joe loses her one expression of feeling, Martin is called on to dig into emotional reserves, she delivers brilliantly.  The last shot of volume 1 is searing and painful thanks to her.

Charlotte Gainsbourg's side of the central performance is just as impressive.  Her Joe seems more fragile as if age and experience have made her brittle.  There is certainly more bitterness in her in this older incarnation, some justifiable, some less so, but she is recognisably the same woman.  Having given us two depictions of depression that manifested themselves in very visible ways; Antichrist's violence and Melancholia's panic, Gainsbourg here shows a much more reticent kind of depression.  Joe seems to operate at one remove from the world; her sexuality the only way she knows - perhaps cares - to connect with it.  Her brilliance here lies not in the searing, screaming, pain of loss as it does in Antichrist but in something much smaller and ultimately harder to understand.  Gainsbourg's side of the film is sadder, more reflective, but she does get to engage in some of its funnier moments, as when a proposed threesome degenerates into an argument between the two men.  Her voiceover means that Gainsbourg remains a presence even in the earliest of the flashback scenes, and does a great deal to tie the two portrayals of Joe together.  It's also just wonderful to listen to, communicating much about Joe's inner life with a rather poetic turn of phrase, not to mention a voice I would happily hear read the phone book.

The supporting cast is eclectic and the performances are as mixed as you might expect.  Perhaps the film's biggest downfall is the performance of Shia La Beouf.  I respect the fact that he's trying to stretch himself now, rather than turn back to the blockbusters that made his name (and, let's face it, an amount of money that allows him that choice), but he's pretty terrible as Jerome; the most important lover in Joe's life.  The problem is twofold.  First of all, for a character who has a lot of screen time, Jerome is frustratingly thinly developed.  He seems to behave in ways that serve the plot rather than tracking as a real character.  This too is something Von Trier jokes about, even implying that Joe may be lying about some of the times that she refers to Jerome, perhaps subbing him in for someone else because it's more interesting to do so. The second issue is LaBeouf's accent.  The film seems to be set in England, but it's so non-specific that there is no reason that Shia had to attempt the abysmally poor, inconsistent, woefully generic, 'English' accent he does here.  Let's just say that Dick VanDyke may now be forgiven.

There is much better news among the supporting cast, Christian Slater is very good as Joe's father (though the fact he stubbornly refuses to age is a little jarring in his last scenes, moving though they are).  Jamie Bell also impresses as a BDSM specialist that the older Joe sees.  He's almost completely devoid of personality, but Bell makes this interesting rather than frustrating.  I found myself asking the same questions as Joe does; who is this man and what does he get out of his 'work', which we never see that he is paid for?  In a smaller role as a friend of young Joe's, Sophie Kennedy Clark puts in a provocative turn in the film's opening chapter, instigating the memorable scene in which her character B and Joe compete to see who can fuck the most men on a train journey and so win a bag of chocolates.  On the downside there is Mia Goth, who has a large part in the film's closing chapter but, while beautiful, is deadly dull and puts almost no expression into her lines.  The film is very nearly stolen, however, by the barnstorming one scene performance of Uma Thurman, which has to be seen to be believed and should, in a world where there is justice, already be a front runner for next year's supporting actress awards.

Lars Von Trier's style as a director is constantly mutating and while Nymphomaniac has moments that recall the incredibly designed beauty of Antichrist and Melancholia (the opening shot, older Joe finding her 'soul tree' and many more) it also has a grittier and more mobile camera style at times.  This apparently comes out of Von Trier's non-proscriptive atmosphere on set, not blocking the scenes in advance and tasking the camera to follow the actors rather than vice versa.  This is perhaps best seen, again, in Uma Thurman's one scene, which has a chaotic but cohesive visual feel.  Perhaps the most notable thing about what Von Trier does here is the way that, like his main character, he appears to be reflecting on his life.  References to his earlier work litter the film.  I'm sure I didn't pick up on all of them but a major plot point of Breaking the Waves is echoed, the opening scene of Antichrist is recreated almost shot for shot and that film's fox also makes a brief cameo in the films most broadly comic scene.  Beyond reflection what Von Trier is saying about how he views this earlier work is never quite clear; perhaps that is what the debate between Joe and Seligman is really about for him, but it's a typically mischievous touch from the director.

Explicit as it is, Nymphomaniac is almost studiedly unsexy.  Part of Joe's story is how her endless sexual activity ends up being unfulfilling and making her numb both physically and mentally.  For its part, the film seems determined to make you feel the physical side of that numbness and it largely succeeds.  Most of the sex is mechanical (in a funny touch the thrusts when Joe loses her virginity are counted out on screen) and even when it's explicitly shot Von Trier's camerawork is so matter of fact.  The signifiers that Hollywood uses to tell you 'this is a sexy scene' are all absent.  It's all very effective in plugging you into Joe's experience.  That all said, I must confess I found one scene in the last chapter to be an exception to this rule, and I suspect most people will have one or two scenes where they find this to be the case.

Though my interest began to flag towards the end of the film, as I began to tire of the heavy metaphors discussed between Joe and Seligman, the film's only major storytelling misstep for me is its coda.  Even in a film that feels as frequently on the nose as this one, that last sequence bothers me because while Nymphomaniac can be groan-inducingly obvious it is never, until that moment, cheaply shocking.  I'll just say that I wish the cut to black had come a couple of minutes earlier and leave it for you to discover what I mean and whether you agree.

As an experience, Nymphomaniac is certainly a singular piece of work and often an exercise in contradiction: pretentious and hilarious; endlessly provocative and explicitly unsexy; artfully composed and messy as hell; rigorous and mischievous.  Viewed as a whole it loses steam, but that may not mean that Volume 2 is a worse film, simply that at four hours it is exhausting.  This isn't a great film by any means, but it's a vital and exciting one, I'm glad it exists and for all its flaws it is essential viewing.
★★★

Blu Ray Reviews: Radley Metzger Triple Bill

On February 11th, Arrow Video are releasing three Radley Metzger films, Camille 2000, The Lickerish Quartet and Score as dual format editions.  You'll find a combined review of all three releases below.

The Films

When these films landed on my doorstep, given my limited prior knowledge of Radley Metzger (I had seen only one of his films before this; The Image, made after Score), I was expecting three helpings of sixties and seventies sexploitation, but, from the opening moment of Camille 2000 - the earliest of these three films - it's clear that Metzger has more highbrow aspirations than most directors working in adult film.  Not only is Camille 2000 adapted from the story by Alexandre Dumas, but it sets out a determinedly stylised stall from the off, opening with a slate and an informal scene of the cast horsing around on the steps of the opera house the first scene will take place in.

Metzger clearly has a signature style as a filmmaker, and you can see it reflected and refined through these three films, which each have strong visual identities.  While they deliver the sex, nudity and eroticism that audiences would have gone to them in pursuit of they also want to entertain and satisfy in terms of storytelling.

Camille 2000 is the weakest film here, its story of the fall of Marguerite a modern day courtesan (perhaps an overly polite word) and the affair she has with a man who is simply not rich enough to keep her in the style to which she's accustomed is well acted, especially by leading lady Danièle Gaubert, but at 130 minutes the pace is extremely slack, and the drama doesn't quite sustain the film.  That said, it is incredibly striking looking.  Constrained by the censorship conditions of 1969, Metzger has to find interesting ways to imply the harder action he can't show.   This leads to a fun little metaphor where he repeatedly racks focus between Gaubert and some flowers in one scene, the rack getting faster as she gets more worked up.  It's likely for the same reason that there are so many shots, particularly during the sex scenes, in which we see the characters in mirrors.  In one shot, taken from above, the entwined bodies of Marguerite and her lover Armand (Nino Castelnuovo) are reflected over and over, creating a multilayered effect that is pretty unique.  Camille 2000 is also strong from a design standpoint; the boldly coloured late 60's chic creates a striking look for the film.

Beautifully photographed and framed throughout, the film hits standout moments when it combines these qualities with its stronger moments of storytelling, as in a long orgy sequence in which Marguerite and Armand, now split up, attempt to make each other jealous.  This is where the performers really excel too, selling the emotional as well as the physical content of these scenes.

If Camille 2000 is flawed but promising, for me, The Lickerish Quartet, from 1970 delivers on the promise.  Here Metzger ups the explicitness of his erotic content, strips back the setup and delivers a surreal and playful work that not only bears but positively demands analysis.  In an extended opening sequence a middle aged couple and their late-teenage son (Frank Wolff, Erika Remberg and Paolo Turco) watch and critique an 8mm adult film (often mocking it).  The son doesn't want to continue with this form of entertainment, so they go out to a carnival and see a motorcycle stunt ride.  When the female rider takes her helmet off the couple believe that she (Silvana Venturelli) is one of the girls from the loop they were just watching.  They invite her back to their home, and that's when things get very strange.

Sexploitation cinema doesn't usually need much interpretation; the purpose is clear from the start, most don't seem to aspire to saying much beyond 'look at these boobs'.  The Lickerish Quartet is different.  There are likely as many readings of this film as there are viewers, for me, the most interesting thread is about cinema.  The opening scene could easily be taken as Metzger's critique of the worth of his own work, while the rest of the film retains that idea, but also uses the story, the ever-changing film within the film and the editing to say something about the effect of cinema on our perception.  It's also entirely possible that that reading has nothing to do with what Metzger wanted to say with this film, but whatever your take on its meanings, this is a  fascinating film that is clearly operating on a much more sophisticated level than your typical slice of softcore.

Of the four leads (who are, essentially, the only people in the film) three are excellent; Venturelli is seductive and mysterious, while Frank Wolff and Erika Remberg add to the 'anything could happen' atmosphere with their detached performances as the bored, jaded aristocrats.  Only Paolo Turco lets the side down, though he's saddled with the film's worst dialogue.  Once again the deign is striking and the now more explicit sex (none of Camille 2000's careful concealing here) is actually pretty sexy, thanks in no small part to the stunning Venturelli.  Ultimately though, The Lickerish Quartet is notable for much, much more than its sex scenes, it's a rewarding and interesting film that straddles the line between art and smut as capably and intriguingly as the best of Walerian Borowczyk's work.

1974's Score is the last and latest of these three Metzger releases, it also likely to be the more controversial one for the director's admirers.  Score exists in two cuts: an uncut version which features a hardcore scene and an R Rated version.  From what the usually very reliable anti-censorhip site Melonfarmers says, it seems that Arrow initially submitted the uncut version, and were asked to make a little over two minutes worth of cuts to get an 18, but that the version now being released is cut by almost five minutes more, which would suggest that when the film was resubmitted the decision was taken to simply submit the R Rated version.  I've asked for comment from both the BBFC and Arrow on this issue.

Censorship issues aside, Score is yet another fine film from Metzger.  Based on an off Broadway play (which featured Sylvester Stallone), Metzger transports the action from New York to a coastal town in Europe, but otherwise keeps the story of a swinging couple in their thirties Claire Wilbur, who played the same role on stage and Gerald Grant) who have a bet running on how many people they can 'score' with and their attempts, over 24 hours to seduce a couple about ten years younger than them (Calvin Culver and cult star Lynn Lowry).  The thing that still makes Score rather different to your usual sexploitation film is the configuration of its pairings.  Both the older couple are bisexual, and the film contrives a same sex partner swap (the deleted hardcore scene is between Grant and Culver).  I can only imagine the reaction of the dirty mac brigade on 42nd street in 1974, not just because, though there is quite a lot of nudity and a brief sex scene before, the film takes an hour or more to get to the main sexual event but also because this would have been something you were unlikely to see at the time outside of gay porn.

The film is dialogue heavy, and the cast all acquit themselves well.  The elfin Lowry is perhaps best; her naive and repressed character slowly melting away, influenced by drugs and a headily sexual atmosphere, but Claire Wilbur is also excellent as the more forceful woman, whose unarticulated frustrations as she slowly tries to seduce Lowry are pretty funny.  You'd expect less of Calvin Culver and Gerald Grant, as neither was so much an actor as a gay porn star, but they both do good work.

Metzger's visual invention was employed to practical as well as artistic purpose on this film.  Lynn Lowry at one point developed a fever blister on her lip, leading to one of the film's most striking images as she and Wilbur talk with an odd decoration; a seesawing plastic bar, filled with water, obscuring the lower halves of their faces.  Set in a more typical home than The Lickerish Quartet, this is perhaps the most visually restrained of these three films, but Metzger still has a great sense of composition, and the film never feels static or stagebound, even in the long sequence that takes place in the older couple's house.

A lighter, more direct, film than either Camille 2000 or The Lickerish Quartet, Score is nevertheless highly enjoyable.  It's solidly written and acted, looks great, and in terms of its eroticism it certainly caters for all tastes.

The Discs

All of these transfers are much of a muchness, and all of them are seriously impressive given what and how old they are.  All three films exhibit some print damage (Score more than the others), but it's never intrusive and damaged frames are very much the exception, rather than the rule. The rest of the news is good; while the HD 'pop' you get from the very best Blu Rays is understandably absent, these films are very pleasing to look at.  Detail is impressive (and explicit) and the colours seem vibrant and true (especially compared to clips of the films seen in some of the interview footage).  Grain is present, but neither it nor DNR seem to affect the film like look of the picture.  It's not their most revelatory work, but these editions maintain Arrow's reputation for quality. 

The Extras

Extensive, as you'd expect.  All three films get commentary tracks with the talkative and engaging Metzger, alongside film historian Michael Bowen, and all three discs also have trailers for each of the three films. 

Camille 2000 and Score both have lengthy behind the scenes footage from the set, given context with more commentary from Metzger (though he does repeat some of the information in the commentary tracks).

Camille 2000 and The Lickerish Quartet each feature deleted and alternate scenes (which really show up how good the films look).

A handful of other bits round out the video extras.  On Camille 2000 there is a restoration comparison, on The Lickerish Quartet a comparison between the location and dubbed soundtracks and on Score a 19 minute interview with Lynn Lowry, who is very candid about both the good and bad experiences she had relating to the film.

Finally, each of the films comes with a collectors booklet by Cinema Sewer's Robin Bougie, these were not supplied for review.

Overall

Though I was less keen on Camille 2000 than on the other two films, I would highly recommend all of these releases, and watching them more or less back to back, as they chart the development of a man who seems to be a highly individual and interesting filmmaker, working in a field where most people would be content to turn out dross.

Camille 2000

★★★

The Lickerish Quartet / Score

★★★★

Mini Review: Alice in Wonderland [XXX]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND [XXX]
DIR: Bill Osco

The mid to late 1970's is generally seen as something of a golden age for porn, that time when even people making X Rated movies were at least attempting to make real films, even if they weren't especially artful. ALICE IN WONDERLAND has fascinated me since I first heard about it; a porno musical? How could that not be at least interesting? It's by no means a great film, but ALICE IN WONDERLAND certainly is interesting.

The thing that is perhaps most intriguing about the film is just how much of it doesn't revolve around sex. There is a long establishing sequence in which Alice (played by the sweetly pretty Kristine DeBell, who had several mainstream roles after this film) makes it clear to her boyfriend that she isn't ready to have sex with him (the film is careful to establish that, despite this stance, Alice is 18), then the White Rabbit shows up in the library where Alice works and leads her into Wonderland. Even in Wonderland, where events become more sexual with each passing scene, there is at least an attempt to tell a story, and to allow DeBell to act. Alice wants to grow up, but she's a little reluctant to join in the various sexual games in Wonderland, and to the filmmaker's and DeBell's credit, they do attempt to carry this through even in Alice's approach to the sex scenes.

The songs are pretty awful, and so is the bawdy comedy, but there is something about this movie. Even though, at the tea party, Alice doesn't so much have tea with the Mad Hatter as, well, blow him, there is a strange innocence about the whole thing. It has a playfulness that makes it, for all its rough edges, bad acting, silliness and shagging, feel like something that a group of friends - pardon the pun - tossed off for a bit of fun. I can't exactly recommend it, because it's not actually any good, but I certainly enjoyed watching it.